QRP TTF 2003
NK6A at San Vicente Mountain Park
04/26/03
This year for QRP TTF the theme was Ghost Towns. Don NK6A contacted me and asked if I'd made any plans for operating the event. I had planned on just going out to a park to put in a few TTF hours, but the thought of hanging out with a couple of fellow QRPers for the event sounded like fun. Don had picked the old site where M*A*S*H used to be filmed and said that Nelson WB6DWD was also coming along. After looking the site up on the web and realizing that it wasn't all that RF friendly, Nelson had the idea of operating from San Vicente Mountain Park, a restored Nike nuclear missile command center that went offline in the 70's. Don drove out there and found the site to be just what the doctor ordered, so plans were made for the 3 of us to meet there Saturday morning.
I got to the site Saturday morning around 11 AM PST. Don and Nelson had already set up some low flying antennas and had operated a few stations. One thing that I brought with me that really helped out a lot was my EZ-Hang sling shot/fishing reel combo. The site had several very tall trees and an un-used telephone pole. We decided to get the antenna situation taken care of right away. First antenna to go up was Don's 20 Meter Dipole. We strung this between the telephone pole and a peak of a tree up about 40 or so feet. After that I put up my 40' vertical wire and laid out the 8 16' ground radials. This antenna works very well with the K1 on 15 through 40. Here are some shots of the antennas and setting them up:
Here's a shot of Nelson and myself pulling antenna support rope back over a tall tree with the EZ-Hang. This was one end of the 20 Meter Dipole.
Here's a shot of the operating site. There's the handy telephone pole to the right supporting our 20 Meter Dipole. Also in the view is part of the old Nike site. That's Nelson and Don making contacts under the huge tree. The big tree in the picture was used to support the 40' vertical wire. We had a few curious onlookers like the guy on the bike in this picture.
Here's a shot of the 40' vertical wire. It's constructed of #22 silver tinned stranded copper with Teflon insulation. I picked up a 10 Lb roll of this at Apex Surplus recently.
After we got the antennas set up, Don worked on 20 Meters with his K2, Nelson used Don's K1 on 15 Meters and I used my K1 on 40 Meters. We all used Don's call - NK6A. Power was provided from various Gel Cells. I had brought a 3AH Gel Cell which was more than enough for the few hours we were there at 5 watts on the K1.
Here are a few shots of the operating position:
Here's a shot of Don and Nelson at our operating position. The various rig's include a K2, 2 K1's, a Sierra, and an Emtech NW8020. The view behind the station is the San Fernando Valley.
Here's a shot of Don and Nelson pouncing on other QRP TTF stations. Notice the 8 purple Teflon radials coming from my K1. The ATU in the K1 has no problem tuning this on 15, 20, 30 and 40 Meters to a nice flat SWR.
Here's a shot of Nelson pounding away on 15 Meters with a nice view of the old Nike base in the background.
Here's a shot of me operating 40 Meters with the K1 and vertical wire.
We had some pretty good luck during the day, and netted 75 QSOs with 31 SPC's and a total score of 12,225. Nice to hear all of the familiar call signs on the air. The bands were not in great shape, but good enough for plenty of activity. Was nice to meet Don and Nelson for a face to face QSO also. I hope we have a chance to do this again before too long.
I also have some pictures of some of the interesting signs that were posted around the park describing the Nike Site:
Here's a shot of our operating site from the tower:
Can you make out Don looking up at us from the picnic table?
Here's another view from the tower that Don took.
That's all for this event. Sure did have a fun time and can't wait until the next TTF event!
73's Trev